Father Klaus Einsle, LC, is currently directing youth groups throughout Germany.

I was born in a small town of farmers and
craftsmen in the southern German province of Bavaria, an area
of great natural beauty. I was surrounded by green pastures,
majestic mountains, rolling hills, deep forests and all sorts of
animals.

A Farmer´s Family

I grew up in a very simple family
with four brothers. Mass, evening prayer led by my mom,
daily rosary during the month of October, month of the
rosary, these were all very normal for me, just part
of the family traditions. I was always outside playing soccer
with my friends in the fields. Whenever we got tired
we would take a seat in a tree and enjoy
ourselves eating apples, plums and cherries. Winter equaled skiing and
ski I did every day there was snow. We had
a ski lift right in the middle of town so
ever since I was three years old, when I got
my first pair of skis, off to the slopes we
would go. I would always go with a group of
friends because skiing alone is boring. At night we would
arrive home, go straight to the fireplace and complain about
how cold our fingers were. But five minutes later we
would be warmed up and the next day we would
be right back out there on the slopes.

That was my
life: sports, friends and school. When I was eight years
old I began playing my first instrument. I wanted to
play the trombone but my hands were too small, so
I took up the French horn. From then on music
became another one of my life´s passions. Music, sports, friends
and somewhere in the background, but still there, God.

A
Passion for Music

My music teacher thought I was pretty
talented so between my experiences in the town band and
music classes an idea popped into my head: why not
be a professional musician? And so it was. At fifteen
I began trombone lessons at the Bregenz Conservatory in Austria,
a well-known music school on the lake of Constanza. I
was captivated and it opened up so many new doors
in my life. I met students from the United States,
France, Liechtenstein ... and was able to travel to Denmark
and all over Germany and Austria.

Around this time I
also fell in love with a girl from my hometown.
This was a very happy time in my life, full
of new experiences, the joy of living for another person,
striving to make her happy, and not looking looking only
to receive but to give as well. I was seventeen
years old.

God´s First Sign: Military Service

It wasn´t long before
I had to do my time in the military. I
was fortunate enough to form part of one of the
few musical bands in the German army, the Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The
band had about seventy members but there were between eight
and ten "special ones". This little group talked about the
Bible and discussed other matters of faith and the Church.
They sparked an interest within me so I bought a
Bible and began to read and question it. One day
Marco, one of the "specials", says to me: "Klaus, I
don´t know what to tell you but I have a
friend who is studying theology and maybe he can answer
your questions better than I can." This other friend´s name
was Ricardo. We went to chat with him and he
really impressed me. He was very sincere an truly self-less.
He wasn´t out to convince me but to help me.
If he didn´t know how to answer something he would
just simply say that he didn´t know but that he
would find out for me.

A few times, before we would
start chatting, he would invite me to pray so that
God would enlighten us. I had never prayed to ask
the Holy Spirit´s help before. I was used to simple
"intellectual acrobatics", which too often was empty discussion. In this
friend I found what I had always thought a true
Christian should be: a person who is joyful yet serious,
kind, happy and with a magnanimous heart. I later met
Ricardo´s friends and they were just like him: open and
joyful; convinced believers. They had something that I had been
searching for. I felt really at home around them.

I finished
my military service and began to attend the "specials" meetings
more often. Every month they got together to have day
of catechesis, prayer and fellowship. There I found peace, happiness
and God amongst those Christians and we learned a great
deal about our Catholic faith.

The Blessed Virgin, My Good Mother

I was invited to join them on a Marian pilgrimage.
Together with my girlfriend, her younger sister and 130 other
young people we took the trip in three buses. Our

Father Klaus on the day of his ordination.

destination was a small town lost in the mountains amidst
rocks and dryness; yet it was as if the mere
air had something special about that place. Peace, peace, pure
peace. Everything was very modest, almost no vegetation, a few
cows that were more bone than anything else, old and
small houses and a church. Unfortunately I can´t tell you
all of the wonderful experiences of those eight days: the
liturgy, the prayers in seven or eight languages, from punks
to pious believers, fervent Catholics to non-believers and a lot
of peace!

On the last night a group of about thirty
of us decided to climb a nearby mountain and stay
there for the night. We arrived to the top at
midnight singing, talking, praying ... Little by little everyone began
to fall asleep except for me. I couldn´t fall asleep.
I just sat there contemplating till about four in the
morning. A few roosters began to crow, a light in
the town below came on, then another, a third, the
first ray of sunlight ... A new day! This thought
was firmly etched in my soul: a new day, a
gift from God. What would I do with this gift,
this brand new day? And what have I done with
the rest of the days I had already received. Each
one, a gift from God."

I started adding them up:
I was twenty years, eight months and twenty days old,
which comes to 7,300 days, each day a gift from
God for me. And what I had done with these
7,300 days? I joined my hands together in an effort
to show God everything I had done for him but
a great sadness entered my heart upon realizing that just
about the only thing I had done thus far was
think about myself.

Uproot the Love of My Heart

I visited
that sanctuary a number of times. Those experiences and the
opportunity to be with such a wonderful group of young
people truly changed my life. I began to pray and
go to Mass every day; but my girlfriend had other
interests. We loved each other a lot but we knew
that little by little we were drifting apart. We had
to go our separate ways. That was so hard! I
felt an enormous pain in my heart and yet an
enormous peace. Pain from having to break with a beautiful
friendship that had been a part of my life for
so long and peace because I could finally pursue an
impulse that I had felt in my heart for some
time: live totally for God and become a priest.

I later
went on a retreat with an Irish priest who spoke
about Christ like I had never heard before. It was
as if he knew Jesus personally. He made Jesus so
alive the way he spoke of him! After one of
his talks, he asked me, half-joking and half-serious, "Would you
like to be a priest?" I said yes. This was
how I met Father Eamon Kelly from the Legionaries of Christ.

Finding Happiness Following Christ

He invited me
to learn more about the Legion of
Christ. Why not go to Italy and spend a few
days with the Legionaries on vacation near Naples? It wasn´t
a bad idea: ten days, the sea, the sun and
meet some seminarians. It was one of the most beautiful
weeks of my life. There were about 100 religious there
and all of them were young. After a night of
little shut-eye, we went to the sea the next day.
100 young men enjoying the water, laughing, diving, playing sports
... What an amazing day. My whole time there was
unforgettable.

A year later I visited Italy again with another
Catholic group. I went to see the Legionaries again because
I wanted to see a few of the friends I
had spent that wonderful week with. They had just built
a new seminary because they didn´t fit in the old
one. They gave me a tour: chapel, computer room, library,
soccer fields and basketball courts, the bedrooms. Later in the
afternoon we went to the chapel to pray the rosary
with the whole community. 300 young men praying the rosary
together all excited about becoming priests. We finished the rosary
and when everyone was leaving I realized in my heart
with absolute clarity that God wanted me to be a
Legionary priest. It was something that I had never experienced
before. But there it was and I couldn´t just forget
about it. I saw it plain as day.

Bingo!

When
I returned to Germany I spoke with Father Eamon about
entering the Novitiate in Germany. I traveled to the United
States for the candidacy and there I spent two months
with sixty other young men who also wanted to be
Legionary priests. Again I experienced the joy and serenity of
living close to Christ. I was totally certain about my
vocation, in other words, bingo!

It isn´t easy to describe in
a few lines the fullness that one experiences following Christ.
I can only say from personal experience that what Jesus
promised Peter was 100% true:

"And everyone who has given
up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother
or children or lands for the sake of my name
will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal
life"(Mt 19, 29).

Father Klaus Einsle, LC, is from Grünenbach,
Bavaria, (Germany). After completing his degree in music, he entered
the Legion of Christ in July of
1992. He studied classical humanities in Salamanca, Spain, and completed
a licentiate in philosophy and a bachelors degree in Theology
from the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome. He was
ordained a priest on January 2, 2001. He is currently
directing youth groups throughout Germany.